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Grif wasn’t Bruce.
    “Sorry,” he whispered against her ear. “Are you okay?” She squeezed his hand and smiled up at him, then turned around to include Elise.
    “Hey, you,” Elise said. She stood up, and there was an awkward pause as she and Grif stepped toward each other, hesitated, and then Grif leaned down and kissed her cheek. “It’s good to see you,” he said.
    “You, too,” she said. “You look great.”
    “Sorry I kept you guys waiting,” Grif said. “Man, do I need a beer. Can I get you another round?”
    Elise hesitated. “Actually, I need to get going in a bit. I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”
    “Are you sure?” Grif asked.
    Ilsa looked at Elise as she and Grif chatted for a few more minutes, wondering if she was leaving so soon because it was painful for her to see Grif with someone else. Grif’s arm was draped across the booth behind Ilsa, and normally she would’ve snuggled closer to him, or put her hand on his leg, but she didn’t.
    “It was wonderful meeting you,” Ilsa said when Elise picked up her purse to go. “Really.”
    She stood up and impulsively gave Elise a quick hug, then watched as Grif did the same. Were those tears in Elise’s eyes? Ilsa wondered. She couldn’t be sure; Elise was already turning around and slipping through the door that Grif had entered just moments before.
    As Elise disappeared, so too did Ilsa’s visions of all the moments Grif had already shared with his old girlfriend. Instead, Ilsa began to glimpse the moments ahead of them, the ones that had yet to unfold: the way she’d look into his eyes as they said their wedding vows; the house they’d buy together someday; the walks they’d take around their neighborhood with a baby in a carrier against Grif’s chest, Fabio strutting proudly alongside them. She would be by his side when their children got married, and she’d never stop loving the way it felt to wake up and feel his body wrapped around hers.
    She suddenly remembered how she’d passed an elderly couple on the sidewalk the other day and had turned to stare after them, not focusing on the woman’s back bent by osteoporosis, or the man’s frail shoulders and thick cane, but narrowing her gaze to fix on the image of their joined hands. She wanted that with Grif. She wanted it so much.
    “Are you okay?” Grif asked again.
    She nodded and leaned forward to kiss him. “Yeah,” she said. “We’re okay.”

The Opposite Of Me

     
    A smart, funny, and poignant novel about the desire to have it all, the relationships that define us, and the complicated, irreplaceable bonds of sisterhood.
     
    Twenty-nine-year-old Lindsey Rose has, for as long as she can remember, lived in the shadow of her ravishingly beautiful fraternal twin sister, Alex. Now that she is finally on the cusp of being named VP creative director of an elite New York advertising agency, Lindsey’s carefully constructed life implodes during the course of one devastating night. Humiliated, she flees the glitter of Manhattan and retreats to the time warp of her parents’ Maryland home. As her sister plans her lavish wedding to her Prince Charming, Lindsey struggles to maintain her identity as the smart, responsible twin while she furtively tries to piece her career back together. But things only get more complicated when a long-held family secret is unleashed that forces both sisters to reconsider who they are and who they are meant to be.

     
    Read on for a look at Sarah Pekkanen’s
    The Opposite of Me
    Currently available from Washington Square Press
    Excerpt from The Opposite of Me copyright © 2010 by Sarah Pekkanen

1
     
    AS I PULLED open the heavy glass door of Richards, Dunne & Krantz and walked down the long hallway toward the executive offices, I noticed a light was on up ahead.
    Lights were never on this early. I quickened my step.
    The light was on in my office, I realized as I drew closer. I’d gone home around 4:00 a.m. to snatch a catnap and a shower,